


Here, in This House

by RosalindInPants



Series: Love and Trauma [2]
Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Burns, Cuddling & Snuggling, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Khalila/Dario only in the last chapter, M/M, Massage, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovered Memories, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, Unsatisfying Sex, awkward lunch date, just a touch of fluff in the last chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-02-28 13:00:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18756928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosalindInPants/pseuds/RosalindInPants
Summary: In Paper and Fire, one of the memories Wolfe recovers with the Mesmer is that he was arrested in his own home. The morning after, Santi is sent away to Rome along with Jess, Glain, Khalila, and Dario, leaving Wolfe alone in the house he just remembered being taken from while everyone he cares about is in danger.This is what Jess didn't see during chapters 7-11 of Paper and Fire.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some relevant quotes:
> 
> Wolfe: "I can't recall any useful details. What they did to me was very effective."
> 
> Wolfe: "I was... here," he said. "They came for me here."
> 
> Santi: "You have what you wanted. Now I have to help him live through the consequences."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Jess leaves, Wolfe and Santi cope with the aftermath of the Mesmer session.

Jess left. For once, the boy had the decency to leave after sticking his nose where it didn't belong and tearing open old scars.

Christopher Wolfe sat with one hand pressed over his tear-filled eyes in the same chair he had been sitting in when the knock came. He remembered it so clearly now: the loud and insistent pounding on the door. His irritation as he put down a cup of coffee that had just reached the perfect temperature for drinking. The books scattered across the table and the tiny model of his printing press already in its box. A dark sky overhead when he opened the door, colored by just a thin ribbon of pink over the rooftops. The soldiers standing at the door, and the transport in the street behind them. His own voice, greeting them as politely as he could manage with hardly any coffee in him so early in the morning, telling them Captain Santi was away in Belgium.

Pain and shock when they charged through the door and shoved him against the wall. The same wall where Nic had pinned him, and he'd pinned Nic, for so many kisses when they couldn't wait another moment to jump into each other's arms after coming home. Rough hands wrenching his arms behind his back to be bound with Library restraints. The details he could see in the paint on that wall, brushstrokes and smudges of dirt, while those same hands searched him, leaving no part of him untouched, and booted feet stomped through his home. He could still hear the boots, the voices, the hiss of the waiting transport.

He didn't know whether he was going to vomit, or pass out, or just shake himself to pieces.

Nic locked the door and returned to the corner, making each footfall loud enough that Wolfe couldn't be surprised by his approach. It was a kind, considerate thing to do, a habit developed during months when the slightest provocation might send Wolfe into a panic. It made the stomping boots in Wolfe's mind seem louder, more real.

"Chris? Are you with me?" Nic crouched in front of him and took his free hand, looking up at his face as if he might find answers there. Wolfe could hardly see him through the blur of his tears, but he recognized that searching expression on his lover's face.

For too long, he hadn't been able to answer those looks. He didn't want to go back to that.

"I'm here," Wolfe answered, his voice sounding weak and far away. But he still had his voice, and that was something. He didn't, always, when the memories were at their worst.

Gently, Nic opened Wolfe's clenched fingers and massaged his hand, the way he used to when Wolfe worked late into the night. He gave special attention to the index and middle fingers, which he'd splinted himself the night Wolfe came home. He'd done it perfectly, but they hadn't quite healed straight. Wolfe knew Nic blamed himself for that, even though a Medica had shown him the signs of older breaks that would prevent those fingers from ever going back to the way they had been. Much like the rest of him.

"I'm sorry," Nic said, rubbing Wolfe's wrist. "I didn't know they took you from here. I should have-"

A sob of a laugh welled up from Wolfe's throat. " _I_ didn't know." He couldn't stop laughing, stop sobbing, and his whole body shook with it, even the hand Nic was so carefully holding. It was getting harder to breathe, and he snatched his hand back from his partner to clutch to his chest, waiting for the familiar pain of panic to start stabbing at him. He knew it was coming; he could feel the fear rising, the certainty that outside the door there must be swarms of the Archivist's soldiers, waiting to burst in and take him away. But now he thought he heard them inside, too: their boots in the bedroom and their voices in the kitchen. When he forced himself to open his eyes, he could almost see them, over Nic's shoulder, lurking just inside the kitchen.

Nic put his hands on Wolfe's shoulders, his grip firm and solid. "Breathe, Chris. In now, as deep as you can." His voice, too, was firm and solid, not a request, but an order. The sound gave Wolfe something to hold onto against the growing panic.

Following his lover's directions, Wolfe breathed through the pain that lanced through his chest, focusing on the sound of Nic's voice and the feel of Nic's hands and reminding himself between breaths that those were real and the pain nothing more than his imagination. The knowledge didn't make it hurt any less, but it did keep the fear from gaining any more of a hold over him than it already had. He'd been through this enough times to know that no matter what he felt, he wasn't really dying, nor was anyone about to kill him. There were people who wanted to kill him, but none of them were nearby.

One breath at a time, he reasserted control of his body while the panic ebbed. It took longer than it usually did; it hadn't been this bad in a long time, not since before his ill-fated teaching assignment, when the memories were still strong and fresh. The events of the past year had already disturbed the ground he'd buried those memories in, and the Mesmer's trance had finished the job, exhuming the rotten, festering things from their graves and leaving them out in the open to torment him anew.

But he was stronger now. Nic had told him that:  _"A broken bone heals twice as strong."_ And Nic was with him now, lending him more strength. He had mastered his memories once, and he could do it again, no matter what the insistent screaming of the panic told him. His breathing calmed, his pulse slowed, the stabbing pain faded to a dull ache.

He looked up to see the fear that still clung to him like his sweat-soaked clothes mirrored in his partner's eyes. He took another breath at Nic's command, then said, "Don't look so worried, my love. I have it under control now. I'll be all right." Not fully the truth, yet, but it would be. Could be. He leaned forward to rest his head in his hands again, bracing himself for the nausea and the chills that would come in the wake of the pain.

Nic's eyes narrowed, just a fraction, but he nodded and relaxed his grip on Wolfe's shoulders. With one hand, he reached up to cup Wolfe's cheek. "Need a cup of tea?" They had found that mint worked well to calm his stomach, and the warmth of the tea would help with the chills.

Wolfe placed a shaky hand over his lover's. "Please."

Nic rose to his feet and grabbed a blanket from the basket beside the chair. Draping it over Wolfe's shoulders, Nic bent down to kiss the top of his head. "The kettle will take a few minutes. Yell for me if you need me."

Shivering under the blanket, Wolfe watched his partner duck into the kitchen to put the kettle on, then out to the garden to pick some of the abundant supply of mint that had been thriving there ever since Wolfe's ill-advised attempt at gardening during that empty year between prison and teaching. While Nic was outside, the nausea grew until he could taste bile at the back of his throat. Clenching his fists and biting the inside of his lip until the pain briefly overwhelmed the nausea, he watched the door until he saw Nic again, then croaked out his partner's name. "Nic. Forget the tea." The shame of sounding so pathetic only intensified the nausea. He should have been able to get up and go get his own mint leaves. He should have been able to wait for the tea. But he was sure he would vomit if he tried.

Nic came to him not at a run - such quick motion could startle him and send the panic spiraling out of control again - but at the brisk walk of a soldier with a purpose. He held a few of the mint leaves he'd gathered to Wolfe's lips, crushing them between his fingers to release the scent. Wolfe opened his mouth enough to take the leaves, and let Nic press another into his hand. He crushed the leaf beneath his nose while Nic went to turn off the stove, breathing deeply until the nausea started to calm. The sound of footsteps out of sight still sent little jolts of fear through him, but he firmly reminded himself that he was being a paranoid fool. Nic wasn't going to magically turn into one of the Archivist's guards.

By the time Nic returned with a glass of water into which he'd put the remaining mint leaves, Wolfe still felt sick, but less likely to throw up. His hands shook as he reached for the glass, so Nic held it with him, their hands together enough to hold the glass steady. A wave of exhaustion washed over him as he swallowed the leaves he'd been chewing with a sip of the water, and he couldn't hold back a yawn. 

"Ready for bed?" Nic asked, taking back the glass.

Wolfe nodded and hauled himself to his feet, leaning heavily first on the arms of the chair, then on Nic. He hated how much he needed the arm that slipped around him, how grateful he felt to have his lover's support as they shuffled to the bedroom together, making a quick stop in the bathroom along the way. There, he insisted on going in alone. Wiping drips from the floor after taking a piss was better than letting Nic hold his cock for him. He brushed his teeth while clinging white-knuckled to the counter, splashed cold water onto his face until the nausea was nearly gone and his blood seemed to freeze in his veins, and all but collapsed into Nic when he stepped back out into the hall.

Might as well be an old man, hunched over and shivering with a blanket clutched around him, unable to even walk to his own bed unassisted. He sank down onto the bed as soon as he got there, remaining sitting only by stubborn force of will while Nic helped him get his boots off. He'd thought he would feel safer with boots on, that it would be easier to face the Mesmer if he knew he could easily leave. But he'd been helpless from the moment the man started talking to him, and he couldn't run from his own mind.

"What are you wearing to bed?" The question sounded casual, but he understood what Nic was really asking: would he feel warmer and better grounded in reality being held skin to skin? Or did he need layers of clothes for security? There were minefields more easily navigated than Wolfe's complex array of feelings surrounding clothing.

As if it were right in his ear, he could hear a guard's voice:  _"Strip and leave the clothes on the floor. You won't be needing them again."_  

He shook his head to clear it. "Get me pants," he said. "Will you rub my back?" There was tension building in his shoulders, his muscles remembering the agonizing positions he'd been restrained in. The nights spent sleeping on a hard stone floor. He had forgotten about sleeping on the floor. It was so little a thing compared to all the rest he'd suffered.

Nic helped him out of his sweaty clothes and into a pair of soft flannel pants. He curled up on the bed while Nic tucked him under the sheets and added a fur blanket far too heavy for the Alexandrian summer night. Still, Wolfe shivered beneath it.

He remembered buckets of cold water thrown over him when he started to slip into exhausted slumber. He'd never forgotten that. It came to him often, when he got comfortable in bed.

The bed creaked as Nic, having shed his clothes, climbed in to lay beside Wolfe, wrapping a strong arm around him. Nic had to be hot under the fur blanket, but he didn't complain, and Wolfe didn't have the energy to go over that old argument again. Nic would kick the blanket off after Wolfe fell asleep. He always did.

Wolfe burrowed into the blanket and his lover's arms, resting his forehead against Nic's shoulder and his hands against Nic's chest while Nic ran a hand lightly over his back, seeking the source of his discomfort. He could feel Nic's heartbeat as the hand on his back settled between his shoulder blades and firm fingers pressed into tense muscle, slowly circling. With each circle of those fingers, he warmed a little more, shook a little less, sank a little closer to slumber.

"I am here, and you are safe," Nic murmured. "I will not let anyone take you. I will not let anyone hurt you. The doors are locked. My gun is on the nightstand. Yours is in the drawer." One piece at a time, he reviewed their security measures and escape plans in a soothing litany of answers to each paranoid fear they had battled over the past two years. There would be new ones, now, but that was a problem for the morning. Warm and exhausted and snuggled close to the man he loved, he let his partner's words soothe him into restless slumber.

He dreamed of Rome, as he usually did, but the dreams were kind enough to refrain from waking him.

It was Nic who woke him, with a gentle hand on his arm and a tray of steaming food. That should have been a pleasant way to wake up: the man he loved half naked and presenting him with breakfast in bed. Coffee, eggs, and toast, the kind of filling meal Nic liked before...

His heart sank as both memory of the night before and understanding of why Nic was there with breakfast simultaneously dawned. "Where are they sending you?" he asked, pushing himself upright and reaching for the coffee cup. He needed to wake up, to drive the last tendrils of his nightmares away. He could still see cell walls when he closed his eyes.

Nic sighed. "It... it might not be related to last night. There could be other reasons..."

Wolfe cut past the hedging. "Rome. They're sending you to Rome. That cannot be a coincidence." He was wide awake even before his first burning gulp of coffee, his pulse racing. He held the cup beneath his nose and inhaled deeply to stave off the panic that threatened to rise again. He'd spent more than enough time being a paranoid, shivering fool the night before, and his beloved was already paying the price. He should have known they would find out, should have prepared...

"This isn't your fault, Chris." Nic sat beside him with the tray in his lap, rubbing the back of Wolfe's neck.

"It is. That is an objective fact, and you know it." Inwardly cringing at his own tone, he shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth to shut himself up. Gods, he didn't want to part in anger. Didn't want to part at all, but they had no choice in that, not if Nic was to keep his career. They needed Nic to keep his career if they were to have any hope of a future, for themselves of for the Library, unlikely as any of that seemed at the moment. It wasn't something to be sacrificed lightly. He swallowed and asked, "What's the mission?"

Nic sighed again. A bad sign, there. "My company is assigned to guard the Artifex Magnus. We translate to Rome as soon as everything is prepared." He took a bite of his own eggs and washed it down with a long drink of coffee. "And I have two new soldiers."

Wolfe didn't need to be told. "Jess Brightwell and Glain Wathen. And I suppose you'll tell me next that the old bastard found a way to drag Khalila and Dario along as well? Assignments in Rome for them?"

Nic only nodded. Their names would have been on the list of Scholars he had to assign troops to guard.

His appetite gone, Wolfe gulped down the rest of his coffee and got out of bed, ignoring the stiffness that reminded him of hours bound in unnatural positions and the shooting pain in his feet that dredged up memories of repeated impacts of rod and lash. All too long ago to still hurt, he reminded himself. The Medica had found nothing wrong with his feet, no cause but memory and imagination for that pain, and his stiff muscles were something that came naturally with age. He just had to walk it off like he always did.

He paced over to the closet and grabbed the first shirt he could reach, pulled it on while pacing back toward the bed. "The Mesmer could have talked. They could have been watching the Mesmer. They almost certainly have someone watching us." The shirt on, he paced back to the closet for a Scholar's robe. He felt too exposed without one. "Jess would know better than to send Codex messages about any of this..."

Nic set his fork down and took a breath to speak. Wolfe held up a finger to silence him. "No, you're right, it may not be related. It could, of course, be my illustrious mother and her political machinations, as you so often like to remind me. More likely, though, Scholar Prakesh found something. This is just the next step in their response to that. They'll pick off the children, as I told Jess." The pacing was improving the state of his legs and feet, and focusing his thoughts, but his hands shook as he tried to fasten the robe. "You need to watch those children, Nic. The Artifex will try to isolate them. If he gets the chance, he'll... he'll..."

He paced faster, the memories nipping at his heels. The wall against his face. Restraints snapping closed on his wrists. Slapping, grasping, squeezing hands. "You have to protect them." He was almost shouting as he whirled back around to face his partner again. "They're splitting us up to keep us from doing anything, and you can't let that stop you. You have to-"

Putting the tray down on the end of the bed, Nic got up and stepped, calm and deliberate, into Wolfe's path, catching him in a tight embrace that turned into a hard and desperate kiss. Wolfe wrapped his arms around his lover, fingers digging into his bare back hard enough to bruise. Nic lifted his mouth away long enough to say, "Chris," and then Wolfe grabbed his neck and pulled him back down again, into an expression of his fears that Nic might understand better than words.

He didn't feel his own tears until he stopped to catch his breath, and Nic gently kissed the corners of his eyes, his arms loosening to rub Wolfe's back. "I know," Nic said, leaning his forehead against Wolfe's. "They are Scholars under my protection and soldiers under my command. Trust me to do my job."

Those words brought a hot burst of shame, and he squeezed his eyes shut to hold back a new round of tears. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"Ssh. I know. We've been over all of this before. We don't have to again, do we?"

Wolfe pulled in a deep breath, let it out, inhaled deeply again. Protection from the panic that lurked at the back of his mind as much as effort to restrain his natural impulse toward sarcasm. "I don't think any of the scenarios we thought out involved you and the children in Rome with the Artifex Magnus," he said at last, with bitter amusement.

Nic laughed the laugh of a soldier on a bloodstained battlefield. "No, perhaps nothing so specific. But I think we may turn this to our own advantage, knowing what we now know. If I can confirm that they're holding Thomas there..."

"...you can plan a rescue. Yes. And after?" Wolfe's mind was already running through options, possibilities and probabilities, actions and reactions, the movements of pieces on a board more complex than any game of chess.

Nic kissed him again, soft and gentle. "Let me get there and assess the situation first," he said. "It's no use planning our moves when we can't see half the board. I'll get word to you the usual way. For now, I have less than an hour before they'll be expecting me on base. Come eat, let me hold you, let us have the last bit of peace we're going to get for a while."

"I can't eat. It won't stay down," he said, shifting his hips until he brushed against his partner's groin, felt what he was expecting to feel there. He looked up to meet his lover's eyes. "You're asking for sex, aren't you?" It hurt a little that Nic wouldn't just ask openly; a final tumble in bed together before their respective duties separated them had been routine before his time in prison. _Rome_. If he was too broken to have thought of it himself, that shouldn't have mattered.

First surprise, then guilt flashed across Nic's face. "No. I'm not. I know after last night-"

Wolfe cut off Nic's protest with a finger to his lips. With his other hand, he pushed down his pants, then reached for Nic's. "We both might die today. We have plenty of lubricant. I need this as much as you do." His body might not agree, but it had been some time since his heart and his body had been in agreement on much, and he wasn't about to let that get in the way of caring for the man he loved. There was little enough he could do for Nic as it was.

In answer, Nic kissed him, kept kissing him as he laid him down on the edge of the bed and grabbed the bottle from the nightstand. Gentle as Nic was, it still hurt, but it was a hurt he wanted, even needed, a hurt that he might cling to to keep all the other hurts at bay after his lover was gone. Wolfe never got hard, and judging by the sounds Nic made and the uneven pace of his thrusts, his beloved didn't have much easier of a time finding his own pleasure. Nic finished with a sigh that sounded as frustrated as satisfied and collapsed forward onto the bed to hold Wolfe, rolling them both over to lie side by side.

They clung to each other in silence, hands and lips grasping at hair and skin. He followed the line of Nic’s jaw, the curve of his ear, the contours of his shoulders, mapping each detail onto the memorized image of his beloved that he would hold in his mind until they were together again. Nic rubbed his shoulders and neck and traced the lines of his scars, driving back as much of the pain and itching as he could in what little time they had. Too soon, Nic's Codex chimed, signaling that the first of his officers had reported for duty. Zara, most likely, though Wolfe neither asked nor looked at the page to confirm his suspicion. She never failed to be inconveniently punctual. Nic would be expected shortly.

While Nic quickly and efficiently put on a clean uniform and armed himself, Wolfe straightened his rumpled shirt and reached for the same pants he'd slept in. Usually, after making love, he would have cleaned himself up and found fresh clothes, but he had no desire to cleanse the last traces of the man he loved, the man he might never see again, from his body.

He was sitting on the bed, fumbling with the clasp on his Scholar's robe again, when Nic came to stand in front of him, holding out his gun. Unlike the gun that Wolfe kept in his drawer, which only fired stunning rounds, this one was capable of lethal shots. "Take it, in case you need it," Nic said. "I'll pick up my spare from my locker when I get to the barracks."

"No." Wolfe fastened the clasp, put his hands in his lap, looked up at his partner's worried face. "It won't do me any more good than the one I have."

"Yours won't work against armor," Nic said, still holding out the gun.

"And what do you expect me to do? Put that to my own head and spare myself from torture?" He saw the shock and hurt on Nic's face, felt it like a knife in his own stomach, and went on, more gently, "I'm not as good a shot as you are, my love. If they send soldiers in armor, I'm already lost. At least you'll be in place to rescue me." Not that they would likely take him back to the same prison, with Nic in that same city. Not that it would be at all productive to say anything of the sort.

Nic holstered the gun, dropped to one knee, and took Wolfe's hands, looking into his eyes as if there might be reassurance to be found there. He couldn't possibly like the bleak despair he saw. "You aren't thinking of-"

Wolfe cut him off sharply, "No." The less said on that subject, the better. "But if I'm to sit here alone with my memories, let's not tempt fate, hmm?"

Nic stood again, picked up his Codex. "Maybe you should stay somewhere else. If we send you on ahead to one of the meeting points..." He paused, thinking. "No, it would be worse if we picked the wrong one. We could ask someone to stay with you here."

With a sigh, Wolfe stood and kissed his partner's smooth, newly shaven cheek. "You know how much I love having company," he said, forcing himself to speak in a light and careless tone. "I'll be fine, my dear. I've reading to do, and the garden needs weeding, I'm sure, and the floors are due for mopping. I'll keep myself busy until you return or send word, don't you worry."

"Chris..." Nic pulled him into a hug, running his fingers through Wolfe's tangled hair. "You don't have to put on a show for me."

He pulled Nic into a soft kiss, then gave him as much of a smile as he could manage. "Worry about yourself, my love. I'm stronger than I was before. I'll be all right. You're the one going to face down the Artifex and the Burners."

"I've survived worse," Nic said with a smile that looked no more genuine than Wolfe's felt.

Nic headed toward the door, and Wolfe followed, glad to be at his lover's side when he walked back into the room he remembered being taken from. He didn't hear boots or voices this time, at least, only himself and the man he loved, talking about what details of his mission he'd been given, sparse as those were. Likely talking just to talk, but Wolfe took in every detail nonetheless; it would give him a problem to mull over while he waited for further communication. At the door, they came together in a final, desperate kiss that lasted until Nic's Codex chimed again.

Looking down at the book, Nic frowned, then opened the door. The sky was still dark, colored by just a thin ribbon of pink over the rooftops, a sight that made Wolfe's stomach clench. " _In bocca al lupo_ , Christopher," Nic said as he stepped through.

Wolfe held the doorknob so hard his fingers hurt. " _Crepi il lupo_ , dear Nic." He watched until his lover was out of sight around the corner, then shut the door, locked it, and collapsed in a trembling ball on the floor, knees drawn up to his chest and tears in his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alone in the house where he was arrested, Wolfe battles the panic brought on by his recovered memories while trying to conduct research that might help with the rescue being planned in Rome.
> 
> There is a torture flashback in this chapter.

Wolfe could have sat there all day, if he let himself. But that would have been useless, and he couldn’t let himself be useless while Nic and the children were in danger. So he got up, giving himself ten breaths leaning against the wall on shaky legs before he forced himself to walk to the bedroom.

Cleaning up breakfast would be a good place to start. A small, manageable step. That was what Nic had encouraged him to do in the days after his release: take small, manageable steps. Walk the length of a room. Brush his hair. Keep his hands from shaking long enough to eat a full meal without spilling anything. Read a poem. Read a novel. Read it again and actually understand it. Write one line, then another, until the page was filled. Until those steps added up to having his life back.

Determined though he was, his pulse still raced when he stepped through the bedroom door. There was nobody there and he damn well knew it, but he still had to sit down and get his breathing under control again.

Looking around the room, he wondered what Nic had seen when he’d come home from Belgium. Clothes strewn everywhere, furniture tipped over, drawers left hanging open? Had that been how Nic discovered something was wrong? Or had the soldiers who searched the place put things back in order afterward? Nic had never said, and Wolfe had never thought to ask, even though it would make sense that the Archivist would have the house searched, regardless of the location of the arrest.

Maybe this was just one violation too many to contemplate, and his mind had shied away from it.

Before picking up the breakfast tray that by some miracle they had managed to avoid knocking over during their earlier exertions, he slipped his Codex into its pocket in his robe and buckled his gun in its holster around his waist. Mere superstitious talismans that would be insufficient to save him if the Archivist actually sent troops or assassins, but they calmed his paranoia somewhat.

His hands shook as he carried the tray, so he kept it close to his body, glad they’d both finished their coffee and his abandoned eggs stuck to the plate. He didn’t look at the wall beside the door as he passed it on his way to the kitchen, but he did look at the door to check that it was locked, closing his eyes until his head faced forward once more.

The kitchen should have been a comforting place to be, with all its reminders of Nic. Nic had been the one to neatly arrange all the cabinets, putting everything from dishes to dish towels in order, gently chiding Wolfe for any disturbances to that order. Nic had chosen all the dishes, all the pans and utensils, the variety of which Wolfe had found overwhelming when he first moved in. Nic’s handwriting was on the grocery list tacked to the wall and the smell of his cooking hung in the air.

Being there only made the loss hurt more. And with loss came fear: Nic wasn’t there to protect him. With fear came memories of the last time he’d been separated from Nic.

Hurriedly, with hands that shook so much that he had to hold the dishes carefully to avoid spilling anything, he combined the remaining eggs in the pan on the stove with his barely touched breakfast and put the plate in the icebox. He could eat it for lunch. If he felt like eating. Leaving the dishes in the washbasin to soak, he retreated to the front room.

He needed to be _productive_. And that meant research.

All the Blanks were still in the neat stack where Jess had left them the night before, all but the one he’d thrown. That one, Nic must have returned to its shelf already. He knew which were which by their bindings. Some were Blanks temporarily loaded with texts he’d deemed safe enough to request from the Codex. He’d collected quite a variety of them over the years, both as gifts and as purchases of his own when a nice design in a shop caught his eye, enough to let him select Blanks that in one way or another suited the texts he used them for, making it easier to grab the right one at a glance.

Others were books they had permits to keep permanent copies of, housed in Blanks with the titles on their spines; if he’d never held originals in his hands, he might have believed that these were like the real things. He knew better, but he still liked the elegant black and gold ones he’d gifted Nic with over the years, a collection of military histories and strategic treatises. Two of those were on the table now: one concerning Russia, the other ancient Rome.

Two of many locations he’d determined Thomas Schreiber might be held in. The safest two to research, due to the sentimental ties he and Nic had to both Moscow and Rome.

It had taken months to get to the point of being able to cross-reference so many texts on those two cities. Convincing Nic that it would be worth looking had taken entirely too long. Even once he had Nic’s cooperation, he’d had to wait weeks while Nic slowly dropped hints that he might like to use his upcoming leave time to travel abroad. Then there had been public conversations and correspondence meant to be intercepted in which they debated locations. Dozens of travel guides and other books on potential destinations requested to fill his collection of Blanks, only to be left on his bookshelves unread. False lead after false lead planted so that the books on Rome and Moscow would be lost among all the others.

All while an innocent boy, a boy Wolfe should have been able to save, suffered in the dark. In Rome.

_Nic and the children are on their way to him now,_ he reminded himself. With hands that still shook like leaves in the wind, he picked up the first of the books on Russia and carried it cradled against his chest to its place on the bookshelf. _Sitting around wallowing in guilt won’t help them._

One by one, he put the books on Moscow away until only the ones on Rome remained on the table. Taking the chair with the best view of the exits, he put on his glasses and opened the first book, ready to hunt through it for anything that might improve the odds of this mad gamble they were being forced into.

Dawn had broken, and a halo of light surrounded the curtains that he didn’t dare open. Seeing people and carriages in the street outside would only heighten his paranoia. It was bad enough he could hear them. That alone made his imagination feed him delusions of sounds from his old study, the bedroom, any part of the house he couldn’t see.

He could picture soldiers tearing through his books, tagging them for removal… He shook his head to clear it. Brushed his fingers over his gun to reassure himself that he was prepared if any real threats turned up. He needed to focus on his work.

He’d thought he was prepared for anything he might find in the books, that his home and the street outside held more terror than ink on paper. After all, there would be no direct reference to a hidden prison, only lies by omission and little slips to hint at what might exist. He opened the book on Roman architecture, one he had a permanent copy of thanks to his dabbling in the field, found the section on the Basilica Julia, started searching for discrepancies.

Couldn’t breathe beneath what felt like a crushing weight on his chest.

The drawing on the page showed only a windowless hall along the Forum side of the building on the first floor.

He forced air into his lungs until he thought they might burst - not nearly as much of a breath as it felt like, he knew from experience - and slowly let it out as his mind raced with fears and doubts and realizations. It was a lie, it had to be a lie. The memory was so clear it hurt to even think about it.

But they’d made him see other things that weren’t real. Nic said there was no Translation Chamber in the Serapeum.

He flipped back a few pages to examine the exterior drawings of the building, fighting the urge to hold his breath as he did. The image of the exterior was drawn from an angle that made it difficult to be certain, but there appeared to be windows on that side, at that level. He flipped ahead to the other floors. It could be a flaw in the artist’s work, but the levels didn’t seem to match, not precisely. It was the slightest of irregularities, but it was confirmation enough. The memory was real.

That should have brought satisfaction, but all he could feel was dread and a bone-deep certainty that they were all going to die, himself and every person in the world who mattered to him. Hard as it was to breathe, he was likely to be the first to go.

Nothing more than senseless panic, but he couldn’t shake it. Pushing the books back, he folded his arms on the table and leaned his head into them, his breathing so shallow he was getting lightheaded. Even with his glasses on, his vision blurred. The glasses slid from his face, and he didn’t bother to put them back on.

When he closed his eyes, he saw the prison. There were books there, too, but not Blanks. Originals. Journals. _His_ books.

He opened his eyes, trying to fight the memory, but it was no use. He still saw it. The stone walls. The books. The flames.

He remembered this scene more clearly than he remembered the words in those books, loathe as he was to admit it, even to himself. He’d tried so very hard to bury this, but it kept clawing its way back to the surface, and the Mesmer’s work had given it new strength. When even breathing took so much effort, he had no chance of fighting it off again.

_It had been hard to breathe then, too. The air in the room was hot and stale and thick with ash. Thicker, by the end. The fear had been strong then, too. He hadn’t yet come to know that room and its devices as intimately as he would by the end, but his acquaintance with the place had already begun. He knew what it meant to be brought there._

_Qualls stood by the wall opposite the door, arranging books in a pile on a low table beside a brazier filled with red-hot coals. The very sight of it sent a wave of visceral horror through Wolfe. Books should never be so close to fire._

_The guards brought him to stand before Qualls, close enough to the brazier that he could feel the heat of it on his skin. After an indeterminate time wearing only thin trousers in a cold cell, he was shamefully grateful for the warmth. At a signal from Qualls, the guards unlocked the cuffs on his hands, though they hovered close enough that he would have to be insane to attempt to fight or escape._

_He wasn’t. Not yet._

_Qualls stepped forward, took the top book in the stack and held it up. “Tragic, that such a brilliant mind could become so twisted as to produce such a thing as this,” the torturer said, opening the book to the title page._

_The image of that page, that handwriting, that title, would be forever burned into Wolfe’s mind._ On the Uses of Pressed Metal Type and Ink on Paper for the Safeguarding, Archiving, and Reproduction of Written Works. _His hope, his despair._

_“One last chance, Scholar,” Qualls said. “Will you repudiate this heresy? Cast it into the flames yourself, tell me the names of those who put this idea into your head, and we will appeal to the Archivist for mercy.” He held out the book._

_Wolfe kept his hands at his sides. “No.” There would be no mercy. Already, he knew that, had the cuts and bruises and missing toenails to prove it. This was a cruel game, nothing more, and he refused to play._

_Faster than Wolfe would have thought possible, Qualls lunged forward to strike him with the book, a hard blow to the head that sent him staggering back into the harsh grasp of the soldier behind him. The soldier yanked him upright by one arm, grabbed a handful of hair to force his head up._

_“I will not ask again, Scholar,” Qualls said, holding out the book again. “Take it.”_

_With a shaking hand, Wolfe reached out and took the book. Clutched it to his chest._

_“Burn it.”_

_He held it tighter, curling around it as much as he could with the guard’s hands still on him. Qualls took a step toward him, and he turned toward the guard, shielding the book between their bodies. It wasn’t just that it was his book; he would have done the same for any book so threatened, and it sickened him to know that people who claimed to serve the Library could possibly do otherwise._

_Qualls sighed, more affectation than actual emotion, Wolfe suspected. “Very well. Restrain him.”_

_Even at his best, he’d never stood a chance against two soldiers, but still he fought to save the book, wrenching himself away from them as they grabbed for it and dropping to the floor in an attempt to roll away. But they were on him too fast, one pinning his legs while the other delivered a brutal kick to his side before putting a knee on his back and grabbing his arms to pull them out from under him. Together, the two dragged him away from the book, leaving it for Qualls to pick up and return to the table._

_They bound him so tightly that his fingers and toes went numb and his lungs could hardly expand to take in the smoky air. When they were done, the guards stepped back, and Qualls came forward to stand close enough that Wolfe could have touched him, had he been able to move. In his gloved hands, the torturer held another book, a much slimmer volume, bound only with thick paper._

_This one, too, Wolfe recognized. His first published paper, a mathematical work that had grown somewhat outdated, but was still occasionally cited. Bound in paper because it was part of a larger volume with the works of other Scholars. Someone would have had to tear that whole book apart just to get his work back out of it._

_“I have found, Scholar Wolfe,” Qualls said, rolling the thin book into a cylinder, “That heresy must be destroyed at its roots. And so we shall begin” Holding it by one end, he touched the other end to the fiery coals._

_It caught in an instant, flames dancing at the end like a torch, the ends of the pages blackening and curling. With a quick snap of his wrist, Qualls put out the flames, leaving the pages smoldering with burning red that crept slowly downward. Wolfe couldn’t take his eyes off those smoldering pages as Qualls lifted the rolled book and brought the burning end toward his restrained arm. He couldn’t escape, couldn’t even flinch away as the heat grew closer._

_And then came the pain. Pure, hot agony. His skin blistered as the fire consumed both his book and his flesh at once. He strained against the straps that held him in a futile struggle to move his arm away from the burning pages. The stench of burning flesh mingled with the smell of burning paper, and he was sick with it. Had there been anything in his stomach, he might have vomited. His scream echoed in the enclosed space, shrill and frantic._

_There was no relief when Qualls lifted the book, only a multiplication of the pain when he brought it down again, higher on Wolfe’s arm, compounded by the horror of seeing just how much of the book was already gone. Irreplaceable knowledge, smoldering away against his skin over and over as the pain increased in an exponential curve._

_Both of his arms and part of his chest had been spotted with blistering burns when, at last, the gods took pity on him and let him slip into unconsciousness._

The memory released him there, too, or at least relaxed its grip. He could see his arms in front of his face again. They felt like they were still burning, each scar aflame with remembered pain. His stomach threatened to turn itself inside out. He shook so hard the chair wobbled beneath him.

But he could breathe again. That was a start. This was going to be one of those days measured by such lofty achievements as keeping adequate oxygen in his lungs and refraining from spewing stomach acid on his books. He’d gotten complacent, thinking those days were past him.

The churning of his stomach made the protection of the books from its contents a priority. It was more tempting than it should have been to just slide the chair back a little, rest his forehead on the edge of the table, and worry about any mess that hit the floor later.

He refused to be that pathetic.

He knew perfectly well how to treat his nausea, and that meant he damn well could do it. Locating one of the burn scars on his arms, he pressed his thumb into it until it hurt not only in his imagination, but in reality, the pain granting him a brief reprieve from the nausea. He had to be careful with that; if he hurt himself too much, the balance could easily tip the other way and make his stomach worse.

It was enough to get him to his feet for now, though. His legs wobbled and he shivered like he was in a Russian winter instead of Egyptian summer, but he was standing, and that was progress.

He was _so very_ proud of himself.

Ideally, he would go to the kitchen and start a pot of tea, find one of those High Garda ration bars to nibble on. Slowly filling his stomach with something nutritious would produce the most lasting relief. But conditions were far from ideal. He might have settled for a glass of water and a cold slice of toast, but the nausea was already returning by the time he was halfway across the room, so that plan, too, had to be rejected.

That left him with the last resort of staggering out into the courtyard to grab mint leaves and shove them into his face. A task even a decently trained dog could have accomplished, and yet he failed even in that, dropping to his hands and knees on the path while his digestive tract emptied itself onto the patch of ornamental succulents the gardener had installed to replace the ruin left in the wake of his attempt at growing herbs.

The gardener had insisted the things were unkillable. Well, this would be a fine test of that, wouldn’t it?

When the last of the dry heaves passed, he grabbed a handful of mint from the patch on the other side of the path and hauled himself to his feet. His legs still shook. His scars burned. But he had plenty of experience ignoring his body’s inconvenient demands for consideration. This was the eye of the storm, and if he didn’t want to pass the day lying in a useless heap, he needed to take advantage of it.

First he went to the kitchen for a quick round of scrubbing while water for tea boiled and he mentally reviewed the ancient stories he and Nic used as code for communication. Unnecessary on a practical level - the details might as well be carved into his bones - but soothingly distracting. Then, as both fear and dizziness crept back in, the gathering of research materials and other necessities.

Despite a deep yearning to return to the courtyard, with its bright warmth and comforting memories of time spent with Nic there while recovering from the wounds that had left him so scarred, he made the logical choice and carried load after load of books to the bedroom. Located at the back of the house, it would be more insulated from the sounds of feet and steam carriages that could set off another wave of panic, and it was an easier place to barricade himself, should that prove necessary to his continued ability to work.

With a pot of tea, a few ration bars, and his gun on the nightstand, books scattered across the bed, and the bedroom door locked, he could finally get some work done. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, he chewed on a bite of near-flavorless ration bar while he opened the first book, a world atlas with detailed city maps, part of his permanent collection. Nic and the children could work out the problem of getting into the prison and rescuing Thomas, but they were going to need a way out of Rome, and beyond that, a place to go to ground. He could find those for them.

As the hours ticked by, he slid, bit by bit, lower on the bed, until he lay huddled under a blanket reading a book propped up by a pillow. His stomach felt better that way, as did his aching joints, his raw nerves. He’d managed to drink most of the pot of tea, but a single ration bar was as much as his stomach could tolerate, and it had taken hours of tiny bites chewed slowly to get that much eaten. Knowing he would be less nauseous with something in his stomach didn't make it any easier to actually put food into it.

It was no more rational than a child hiding beneath the covers from the monster in the closet, but with the bulk of the blanket against his back, the stupid, frightened part of his brain could imagine Nic was there beside him, and Nic’s presence meant safety on a bone-deep level unaffected by reality.

Profoundly unaffected by reality, because everything he found indicated that it was not he who was in danger, but Nic, Nic and the children, trapped in one of the best secured cities in the world. Unless he found something in one of the last two books stacked beside him, they were going to have to hope Jess Brightwell’s criminal connections could bring them to some smuggling route. The only other option would be translation.

He did not want to count on translation. Just translating _into_ Rome was going to use up all the leverage he and Nic had against the Obscurist who operated the Translation Chamber in Alexandria. Translating _out_ would require calling in a favor from his mother, and gods only knew what that would cost them. If she even agreed to help, which he could hardly count on.

_Slender fingers brushed his cheek. “It will be over soon. You're going home.”_ He shuddered at the memory of his mother’s touch, the way she’d spoken to him on the night of his release as if she hadn’t, yet again, abandoned him. As if she hadn’t known where he was and what was being done to him. He hated the thought that his survival, and the survival of the people he cared about, might just depend on the guilt and regret in her voice that night being genuine.

Tugging the blanket tighter around himself, he opened the next book, a travel narrative published over 200 years ago. Unlikely to be helpful, but better than nothing. As he settled into his reading, he felt the phantom weight of Nic’s arm drape over him, and he closed his eyes, letting himself have the comforting delusion, just for a moment. There were Nic’s lips against his ear. Calloused fingers stroking his arm, finding the scars and rubbing the pain away.

_“I am here, Christopher. You are safe here.”_

If only he could believe in those remembered words. Scratching at a scar until the nausea threatened to flare up again in response, he forced his attention back to his reading. Nic was the one in real danger, and he had to do something about it.

Worry was gnawing at his guts and the light was long gone from behind the curtains by the time his codex chimed with a message from Nic. He read it twice, sitting upright as he did despite the protests of joints and muscles made stiff by long inactivity, and after gulping down the dregs of the tea remaining in the pot, he hauled himself out of bed. There were preparations to be made, and not much time to make them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final pieces of the plan come together, and Wolfe has to leave his home behind and travel to Rome.

**EPHEMERA**

**Text of a message from Captain Niccolo Santi to Scholar Christopher Wolfe**

_My apologies for writing so late. As you know, duty must always come first. You are likely already in bed, so I will look for your reply in the morning. I pray you do not wake too late, as I am scheduled to return to duty early. We have arrived at the Serapuem and secured our charges. There was the usual trouble from the Burners, but the lions made quick work of them. You will be proud to know that your former students made a good showing in the fight. If they continue to perform so well, I may even forgive you for saddling me with them._

_Now that I am off duty, I can return to the subject of our earlier debate. Having spent the evening walking in the shadows of the ancients and then praying in the chapel of my own faith, I begin to see your point about the myth of Iphigenia. There are, in fact, significant parallels to the story of Abraham and Isaac in the variants in which Artemis replaces the poor girl with a deer. I shall have to reread_ Iphigenia in Tauris _when I find time to spare. Sadly, that seems unlikely before the conclusion of this mission, so for now I will tentatively concede that you were correct and grant you the joy of gloating._

_Don’t take this as a more general concession where classical Greek literature is concerned. I still maintain that Telemachus is a better character than Penelope, and don’t even get me started on Oedipus._

_I think I would rather pursue the works of more local Scholars while I am here. Would you fancy a discussion of Dante or Virgil? I’m sure you tire of hearing my thoughts on Machiavelli._

_I must sleep now if I am to have any hope of remaining conscious through what promises to be a long, dull day of patrols tomorrow. I will write in the morning if I can._

_Yours always, Nic_

 

**Text of a message from Scholar Christopher Wolfe to Captain Niccolo Santi**

_You are fortunate that our irritating neighbors had their incessantly yapping dog out again this morning. I might otherwise have missed the opportunity to write before you begin your work for the day. I do appreciate your assurances that all is well, though you might at least have sent a quick note after the Translation. You know how that whole process worries me. Nonetheless, I am pleased to learn of your continued survival and of the excellent performance of your newest soldiers. I expect that soon enough you will be thanking me for appointing them to the High Garda._

_Of course I was right about Iphigenia. You were a fool to ever advance any other argument, and you are fortunate that I love you enough to put up with such nonsense. Please spare me your theories on Telemachus and Oedipus. Though given your inclination toward foolishness where literature is concerned, I suppose I should not be surprised at your empathy for such characters. I shall review the relevant texts and select passages to illuminate the depths of your ignorance._

_Take care that you do not allow the influence of your current surroundings to further corrupt your thoughts on these matters. If you suggest that Virgil’s account of Orpheus and Eurydice is superior to Plato’s, you may find yourself banished from my bed. You are right that I do not want to hear any more of your fawning over your namesake. Nor do I have any desire to read about your Christian afterlife. No, my dear, you should pursue the true classics in what leisure time you have. I cannot recommend Plato and Aristotle highly enough._

_I suggest you contemplate these texts while you conduct those patrols. It won’t do to let your mind atrophy. Should you have any further epiphanies, do inform me. You know how I love to have my ego stroked._

_Wolfe_

* * *

He should have slept. Wolfe knew he should have slept. But there was so much to be done. Books needed to be loaded with misleading texts and carefully arranged on shelves and tables. Evidence of false plans needed to be manufactured. His pack needed to be filled with clothing and supplies. The house needed to be checked and re-checked for intruders. He desperately needed a shower.

The shower turned out to be the most difficult of those tasks. He stood in the bathroom, the water running, hands shaking too hard to unfasten his robe, listening intently for the intruders he was becoming increasingly convinced were just outside the door. Glaring down at the disobedient appendages, he calculated the area and volume of each room in the house, then the probability of anyone successfully sneaking into rooms of those dimensions through the available entrances.

The odds of anyone being in the house were vanishingly small, but logic was of little help in conquering irrational fear, so he marched himself out with gun in hand to grab a chair, detouring to verify that the doors were still locked and the iron grates secure over each window. It was late enough that the street outside was quiet, but the distant sound of a steam carriage still made him flinch. Having verified that the house was as secure as it could be, he returned to the bathroom to shut himself in with the door locked and the back of the chair wedged under the doorknob.

He got the robe off, then the shirt. The pants, though, proved more difficult. There were the voices again, bubbling up from his memories, some dozen guards ordering him to strip, to bare his body to the pain about to be inflicted upon it. He could feel the threadbare fabric of his prison uniform, rough against his skin, the hands seizing him and tearing even that flimsy protection away. He’d fought them, when he had the strength. It never mattered. Always the clothes came off, the restraints went on, and the pain followed.

His scars burned with the memories, each one hurting as if newly wounded.

_That’s over now, but it won’t be for long if you can’t pull yourself together,_ he snapped at himself, forcing his shaking hands to grasp the waistband of his pants and push them down. Once they were past his hips, the loose fabric slid through his fingers and down to the floor of its own accord, leaving him feeling irrationally bereft. He’d slept in those damned pants. He’d put them back on right after sex. He should have been disgusted with the things hours ago.

But Nic had given them to him, a night ago, though it seemed so much longer, and that made them hard to let go of. He gave himself a moment, a long breath in and out with the soft fabric pooled around his feet, and then he stepped into the shower.

The hot water was gone, wasted while he indulged his paranoia and fought the memories. He didn’t care. The bracing shock of cold water on his skin drove back the remembered pain, and if that first splash of it reminded him of being kept from sleep by similar means, well, that was a memory he felt better prepared to cope with.

Even after years of showering in barracks and military camps, he still couldn’t get himself scrubbed quite as fast as Nic did, if only because of his hair, but still it wasn’t long before he stepped back out of the freezing torrent and wrapped himself in one of the large, fluffy towels that hung from hooks on the walls.

He remembered how good those towels had felt on his battered body when Nic bathed him after his return home. How careful Nic had been when he dried him. He’d been so helpless then, broken seemingly beyond repair. Shaken as he was from the recovery of his memories, at least he hadn’t gone back to the way he was then. He could hold himself together a little longer, long enough to get through what was coming.

Shivering, for once from cold, he returned to the bedroom. Brief as it had been, the shower’s chill seemed to have penetrated to his bones, leaving his fingers numb and clumsy on the doorknob. The very thought of trying to get dressed with fingers that could hardly turn a lock was absurd, so after checking that the windows were still secure, he climbed into the bed, burrowing under the fur blanket that had warmed him the night before.

Just a few minutes to warm himself. That was all he needed. He underestimated his own exhaustion and the depth of his yearning for Nic. Even after spending much of the day alone in the bed, he could still smell Nic, his sweat on the sheets and his shaving soap on his pillow, and Wolfe could all but see his beloved when he closed his eyes. The weight of the blanket was the weight of Nic’s arm around him, warm and secure. He yawned, and lifting his head from the pillow seemed an impossible task. His arm seemed twice its weight when he reached for the alarm clock and set it. He didn’t even bother to return it to its spot on the nightstand before he fell asleep, hugging Nic’s pillow.

_He walked through a rain of ash, and Nic was gone. By the strange logic of dreams, the powdery gray flakes drifted constantly down from the ceiling, covering the bedroom in a fine layer that swirled up around his feet as he followed the faint trail of Nic’s bootprints. It took too long to get out of the room, as if its dimensions had stretched far beyond anything possible._

_His hand was on the doorknob when he heard Nic’s scream. Harsh, sharp, a sound he wished he didn’t know so well, but who could love a soldier without learning the sound of his pain? He all but tore the door from its hinges before running blindly into the hall, charging toward the sound._

_He didn’t see the soldiers before they grabbed him, one from the hall behind him, one from around the corner in front of him, one from the study to his side. Rough hands shoved him against the wall, pinned him there while restraints closed around his wrists, while more hands searched him, all while Nic’s screams continued to echo and the ash smeared over his face, getting into his eyes, his nose, his mouth, the taste of it sickening._

_They forced him to walk, marched him to the door while more soldiers surged past him, their hands full of translation tags. And still Nic screamed, beyond the door. Still the ashes fell._

_When they shoved him through the door, he found himself not in the street, but in a darkened hall with walls built of stones that reeked of misery. Here, too, the ashes rained down. Here, too, Nic screamed, and Wolfe knew too well where those screams came from. He’d walked through this hall just a night ago in memory, and he knew its every turn. There was the cell where he had starved and frozen, shuddered and wept. There, the turn where the most sadistic of the guards liked to trip him and send him tumbling into a rough stone that jutted out from the wall. And there, the door leading to the room with the bath and the tea and the soft bed, the only place he feared as much as the room from which Nic’s screams rang out._

_There was light ahead, flickering orange light that grew brighter with every turn. Nic’s screams grew more frantic. Wolfe struggled to shake himself free of his captors, for the only time in his life actually wanting to run to that room, but their hands were like iron on his arms, and he could only keep walking._

_And then, he rounded the last corner. He saw the room engulfed in flames, the shadow of the man he loved writhing and flickering beyond them, and the guards did not have to push him into the fire. They only needed to let go._

He woke screaming. By the ache in his throat, he’d been screaming for some time. He’d flung the covers off and scattered books and pillows alike with his flailing. Usually, when the nightmares got that bad, Nic was there to wake him from them, or if they were the persistent sort, at least to hold him until they passed. Sometimes, he was relieved to wake up in Nic’s arms.

But sometimes he hated it. Hated himself for his weakness and lack of control. Hated Nic for treating him like he was made of shattered glass. For all that he longed for love and relief, he shoved that longing aside and called up the hate, drew it around himself like one of his black robes and used the force of it to get himself out of bed, into clean clothes, and into the kitchen. He needed water, and he needed to take care of himself instead of falling apart without Nic there to take care of him. He’d come to rely too much on being taken care of, that much was clear.

After gulping down a glass of cold water that numbed his throat, if nothing else, he put on the coffee pot and threw the leftover eggs into a pan to reheat. If he was going to take care of himself, that meant he was going to have to force himself to choke down a meal. His last meal, perhaps. Nic would likely summon him to Rome within the day, and he had no illusions about the probability of success.

While he waited for his breakfast to reach an adequate temperature, he reviewed the Codex message he had written for Nic the night before, adjusted some wording, and glanced at the clock. Early enough that Nic would likely be asleep still, if not for much longer. He sent the message anyway, and told himself he didn’t care.

He had just poured his coffee when his Codex chimed with a message from Nic. Just a few words: _You’re lucky I’m up so early. Too tired to get into it with you about literature, but how about Socrates? Will write more when I get the chance, after breakfast, maybe._ Wolfe shivered at the words. Socrates, who was executed. That had to be a deliberate choice. An imminent threat from the Artifex, most likely, meaning that their own plan was already in motion. The time had come to get himself into position.

After sending a quick acknowledgement to Nic, he ate as much as he could, shoveling eggs straight from the pan into his mouth without tasting them. When his stomach threatened to rebel if he took another bite, he picked up the pan, ignoring the heat of it in his hands, to dump the rest into the garbage. Froze after taking two steps, the weight of understanding sinking into him. There was no point in cleaning. He wasn’t ever going to see this pan or this kitchen again.

His eyes burned, and the tears came soon after.  Useless emotion. What good did it do to mourn the loss of a home he could barely stand to be in? A life already taken from him? He scratched a scar on his shoulder until he actually had something to cry about, and forced himself to look up, to take his last look at all he lad lost.

The kitchen, where Nic had cooked so many meals for them. Cabinets full of spices they would never use, wines they would never drink. With any luck, it would reek of rotten eggs by the time the Archivist’s troops came to search it.

Then to the garden, to stand in the shade of the lemon tree for the last time and stuff his pocket with mint. A long look at the bench where he’d rested in the sun while his wounds healed, and then he went back inside to look over his bookshelves, his table, his chairs, all arranged with carefully planted clues to cover his plans.

He looked at the wall beside the door until he could almost feel his face pressed into it, and then he fled to the bedroom to grab his pack and gaze for the last time on the bed he had shared with Nic for so long.

Coming out of the bedroom, he stood at the closed door of his old study, his hand shaking on the knob. No, there were no good memories there. Shouldering his pack, he turned and left the house before either grief or panic could sink their claws any deeper into him.

He locked the door behind him, not even thinking of the uselessness of it before it was already done and the key back in his pocket.

The sun was barely above the horizon by the time he got to the Serapeum, but the grounds were already busy with Scholars on their way to work and soldiers on patrol. He’d made the walk there with little trouble. Instinctively, he watched the shadowed corners and alleys and turned to investigate the sources of every sound he heard, his hand clutching his robe over his concealed gun. But it was a rational sort of fear, the kind he felt in battles, not the mad panic of the past two days. Strange that the dark streets could feel so much safer than his own home. No, not his home anymore. He had to stop thinking of it as such.

He entered on the public side of the building, a more roundabout route to his destination within, but less likely to be guarded by the Archivist’s own forces. The ground level of the pyramid was open to the general public, staffed by those lowly Scholars who had the misfortune of being assigned to serve them, with a squad of young soldiers on duty to look out for Burners. None paid him any mind. Why should they? They all outranked him. Most of them probably didn’t even know who he was.

Swallowing his bitterness, he proceeded past the public reading rooms and into the halls that led deeper into the Serapeum, back toward the offices. Confusing though they could be to navigate, it was possible to access any part of the Serapeum through these back halls, if one knew where to look for the concealed mechanisms and passages. Wolfe knew them all well.

Some of them too well. Stepping into a hidden lifting chamber, he shuddered, unable to shake the claustrophobic sense of the walls closing in on him as the doors shut and the room began to move upward. They’d brought him down to the cells beneath the Serapeum in a chamber much like this one, after the Archivist questioned him. Maybe this very one. He’d forgotten that, before the Mesmer, the feeling of sinking downward while iron shackles encircled his wrists for the first time. Forgotten how hard it had been to walk with his ankles chained, how cruelly the guards had laughed when they hauled him back to his feet after he stumbled.

Those memories were nothing compared to the ones of the cells below.

_You’re not going that way_ , he chided himself. He leaned against the wall, concentrating on the feeling of upward movement. But he couldn’t get the images out of his mind. His scars itched, and he absently rubbed wrists that remembered the weight of iron. By the time the lift stopped moving, his hands shook, and he was panting for breath.

The doors opened on a hall he knew too well. He’d brought his class down this hall just six months ago, but that memory was not so sharp and vivid as the one the Mesmer had dredged up of his trip down this hall three years ago. He hesitated only long enough to verify that the hall was empty before stalking down it, chased by the memory of his own weak and agonized steps. He’d barely been able to stand, but they’d made him walk the whole way.

He stopped in the small room outside the Translation Chamber to collect himself with deep breaths into lungs that didn’t feel like they could hold so much air, nails dug into scars, and vicious lectures to himself on the consequences of failure. The whole place was silent as a grave. Hidden as it was behind so many locks that took a gold band to open, there was little point in keeping guards here. He listened for footsteps all the same.

His hands were still shaking when the message from Nic came. A quick note, an overly affectionate apology for being so cranky earlier, but the content didn’t matter. It was his signal to move. He drew his gun and strode into the Translation Chamber to find the old Obscurist in the middle of his breakfast, huddled over a little desk tucked away in the corner.

Wolfe had been prepared for questions, for resistance, but the old Obscurist offered none. He only put down his fork with a rattling sigh and stood to walk to the helmet in the center of the room. Either he knew already what leverage Wolfe held over him, or he didn’t care who his orders came from. Or he had the good sense not to argue with a man holding a gun. Or perhaps this was another of his mother’s rare kindnesses. It didn’t matter.

“Where am I sending you?” the Obscurist asked while Wolfe put on the helmet. If he noticed the shaking of Wolfe’s hands or the dangerous wavering of the gun, he said nothing.

“Rome. The Basilica Julia.” Pain lanced through his chest as he said the words, a flare of panic and memory. He stilled himself and kept his face blank by pure force of will. He couldn’t let himself falter. Not here.

The Obscurist’s eyes widened, but he said nothing. His hands touched the helmet, and the power tore Wolfe apart.

He was on his feet as soon as his body came together again, tensed for a fight, scanning the room for threats. But it was quiet, and Nic was there, catching him by the hand that held the gun and quickly taking the weapon from him before wrapping him in strong arms. All his angry determination wavered in those arms, and he sank against his beloved soldier, breathing in his smell of gunpowder and sweat.

Past Nic’s shoulder, he could see two fallen soldiers and a white-robed Obscurist, side by side on the floor. Stunned. Glain crouched beside their still forms, tying their hands together with a length of rope. Dario stood guard at the door. No privacy to be had then, and if there had already been fighting, even less time.

“I’m sorry,” Nic whispered, barely audible even with his lips against Wolfe’s ear. One hand roamed over Wolfe’s back, up his neck to touch his tightly bound hair, and around to stroke his cheek. “If there had been any other way…”

Wolfe gave the man he loved a tight squeeze and rose a little on his toes to kiss him, swift and fierce and hungry, tongues barely meeting before lips were forced to part. He would have given anything for a minute more, but he could hear the shuffle of Glain’s boots, and he knew they were out of time. “Don’t look so worried,” he said, offering Nic as warm a smile as he could manage. Likely not very convincing. “I’ll be fine.”

They stepped back from each other at the same time. Nic passed Wolfe’s gun back to him and signaled to Glain to go ahead. There was only a second to catch his breath, to will his hands to stop trembling, and then they were moving. Side by side with Nic, he walked into the place of his nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some explanation of the ephemera:
> 
> While some sort of mathematical code would probably make the most sense for Wolfe and Santi to use, I am not a math person, and thus I have decided on literary references instead. Both Wolfe and Santi are well-read, and thus able to refer to certain concepts by the use of literary references under the cover of debating the texts in question. In particular:
> 
> There are two versions of the story of Iphigenia, daughter of King Agamemnon. In both, King Agamemnon angers Artemis and is told that he must sacrifice his daughter to appease the goddess. In one, the sacrifice takes place and Iphigenia dies. In the other, Artemis replaces Iphigenia with a deer at the last second and transports her to Tauris, where she is forced to serve as a priestess. Iphigenia in Tauris is a play by Euripides that tells the second version. As the story of a person who is either dead or held captive, it makes an effective code for Thomas. Santi's references to Iphigenia in Tauris tell Wolfe that he has confirmation that Thomas is in Rome. Wolfe can't resist an "I told you so" in response.
> 
> In the Odyssey, Penelope remains at home while Telemachus goes looking for Odysseus. Saying that Telemachus is the better character tells Wolfe that he needs to leave home and come to Rome. Wolfe confirms the plan by mentioning only Telemachus in his own reply.
> 
> Dante's Inferno is about a trip through Hell. Virgil wrote both the Aeneid, a story ending in the city that will become Rome, and a version of the myth of Orpheus's descent into the underworld to rescue his wife. Mentioning these two authors together is a warning to Wolfe that he's going to have to translate in and go through the prison with everyone. Wolfe confirms this by referring to both authors' works in his reply.
> 
> Oedipus has problems involving his mother (there's more to it than that, but the rest is a distraction). Niccolo Machiavelli is famous for writing about how to manipulate people for political gain. Santi references both to let Wolfe know that he suspects Curia scheming, a subject they have discussed previously. Wolfe's dismissive comments about both Oedipus and Machiavelli are mostly there for distraction, but also reflect his perspective that he, Nic, and the children are the Artifex's primary targets.
> 
> Socrates was executed by his political enemies, using poison. Santi mentions him to warn Wolfe that the Artifex may be onto them. He might have mentioned other names for this purpose as well, but for obvious reasons, poison was on his mind.
> 
> Santi's references to morning, not having time for things, and getting up early tell Wolfe to expect the plan to go into motion soon, probably early the next day. The book isn't clear on when Santi discovered the poison and the Artifex's plans, so I'm leaving it open to interpretation here whether he knew when he wrote the first note, or whether he didn't decide for certain to move until morning. Either way, he warned Wolfe to be prepared to move quickly, and the note in the morning is Wolfe's signal to get to the Translation Chamber.
> 
> Much of the rest is distraction and assurances to each other that they and the children are safe (or at least as safe as they can be).


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wolfe finally gets a chance to rest at lunch with Santi, Khalila and Dario after the group splits up following the prison break. Two kids shocked by what they've just seen and their freshly retraumatized adoptive dads on a double date. What could possibly go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what Paper and Fire says: "The delay in the arrival of Santi's party had simply been caution; they'd stayed well away from any areas where they might have been noticed, and ate a long lunch instead."  
> The lunch included "cold meats and cheeses."
> 
> I'm just working with what Caine gave me here.
> 
> Thanks to Mazeem for help with editing.

Wolfe was not entirely certain that anything he was seeing was real. Logically, it could not possibly be real. He had walked back into the prison beneath the Roman Serapeum and been captured and shoved back into his cell, or perhaps he had never really left it to begin with. That seemed far more likely than the possibility that he had truly walked out of that prison and through the back streets of Rome to sit in the corner of a dark, dusty, and nearly deserted tavern with his beloved Niccolo Santi and two of his former students.

But Nic’s shoulder rested against his, solid and real, and Nic’s hand clasped his under the table, anchoring him. He was here. This was real. As long as he focused on where he was now and didn’t let himself think about how he’d gotten here, he might avoid falling apart.

On the opposite side of the table, Khalila Seif smiled a fragile smile and said, “It was very kind of you to guide us here, Captain Santi, Scholar Wolfe.” She was surely exaggerating Wolfe’s own involvement out of courtesy; he’d been too busy concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other without vomiting to guide anyone anywhere.

Next to her, Dario Santiago looked up from the menu he had been puzzling over. “Yes, thank you,” he said with false cheer. “I can’t imagine how we would have found a place like this on our own. This city is a maze.”

Something about that caught in his mind. A maze, a labyrinth, and at the center of it… he shivered, blinking away the image of a bloodstained floor beneath his boots. It wasn’t real. He wasn’t there. Not anymore.

Nic squeezed his hand. “Chris found it, actually,” he said. “It was his idea to go exploring on our first night in Rome together.” He paused, and Wolfe could feel a slight increase in the tension in his muscles. Waiting to see if Wolfe could pick up the cue.

He could manage that much. For Nic, for the children, who no doubt needed reassurance he was in no immediate danger of shattering. He didn’t at all like the worried look Khalila was giving him.  “Ah, yes, another occasion of fleeing through this accursed city,” he said, letting the sarcasm drip from his words. “We didn’t know how fortunate we were to have only the hordes of fool tourists to evade.”

A wave of nausea ran through him. He reached into his pocket for a mint leaf, but there was nothing there. He’d given that robe to Thomas, and the few leaves remaining in its pocket were gone with it. Probably should have given this one to Thomas - it was cleaner - but he hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time. The sight of the boy standing there shivering in those prison clothes… the memory of it brought another wave of sickness. He leaned his head back against the wall behind the bench he shared with Nic, closing his eyes and biting his tongue until his guts seemed less likely to shame him in front of the children.

Nic rubbed his thumb over the top of Wolfe’s hand, a signal they’d established together in the year after his release, when he’d started venturing out again only to find the world beyond his home overwhelming. Ironic that in the end, he’d come to fear the world within his home more. He inhaled in time with the rhythmic motion of Nic’s thumb, pushing down the memories and the aftereffects of terror to ground himself in the present.

“...and then Chris finishes off the Chianti, and he says to the couple next to us...” Nic was still talking. Continuing the story, until the bartender’s appearance at the table interrupted him.

Wolfe recognized the old man as the same man who’d been behind the bar on that first night here, so many years ago. Still short and stocky, his bushy beard had gone gray and his head nearly bald, but his scowl was the same as always. Balancing a tray containing a generously sized jug of wine and an assortment of glassware in one hand, he set a steaming teapot down in the center of the table with the other. “You folks going to eat?” he asked in Italian.

Nic picked up the menu for the first time since they’d arrived. Wolfe didn’t bother with his; Nic could order for both of them. Dario looked back down at his with the same expression he’d had on the days Wolfe had surprised his class with tests.

“Captain, is there any chance you could recommend something suitable?” Khalila asked.

Nic looked over the menu. Not really seeing it, Wolfe suspected. His eyes, brown by the dim glows, moved back and forth, but they lacked focus. After a moment, looked up. “Antonio, old friend,” he said in Italian with one of his charming smiles, gesturing with a broad sweep of his hand to the party at the table, “As you can see, we are all here in town on business, and we are currently awaiting orders of a, shall we say, time sensitive nature. Much as Christopher and I adore Silvio’s cooking, might I ask you to put together a cold plate for us?”

The old bartender shrugged, setting the last teacup down in front of Khalila. “Eh, sure.” He turned and shuffled back to the kitchen behind the bar.

“Well, this looks promising,” Dario said, pouring himself a generous glass of wine. “Are you certain we can trust the food here, though?” He cast a dubious look up at the cobwebs stretched across the corner above their heads.

“I wouldn’t expect you to be so finicky, considering the locations in which you were known to go drinking during your postulancy,” Wolfe said, reaching for the teapot. He thought he had his hand under control, but halfway over the table, it started to shake.

“Here, allow me, sir.” Khalila hurriedly lifted the teapot to fill both his cup and her own.

“It’s hardly finicky to question the sanitation of a place before eating from its kitchens,” Dario said, “Having spied on me, you ought to know that I never-”

Khalila cleared her throat, and Dario went silent. She shot him a warning look, and pasted a smile back on her face as she turned to Nic. “Would either of you care for tea?”

Nic and Dario both declined, naturally. The absurdity of it was surreal enough that Wolfe had to wonder, again, if he was imagining things. But no, the bench was solid beneath him, the teacup warm in his hand, and the tea hot on his tongue. He drank half the cup in a few quick gulps, the relief well worth the burn.

Antonio brought the bread out first, a long loaf warm from the oven, accompanied by a bowl of seasoned oil for dipping. Nic dropped a generously sized piece onto Wolfe’s plate, a silent plea in his eyes. Wolfe glared at him, but picked up the bread and slowly chewed a bite. He’d just taken a second bite when the rest of the food came, a large tray laden with small plates of meats, cheeses, and marinated vegetables. Wolfe served himself before Nic could get it into his head to dote on him again, taking more than he expected to be able to eat.

He didn’t miss the relief on Nic’s face when they reached for the prosciutto-wrapped mozzarella at the same time. Nor did he miss the efficiency of Nic’s eating. His plate was filled mostly with meats and bread, fortification for the fight they all knew was coming.

Wolfe dropped a spoonful of marinated peppers onto Nic’s plate, and let himself grin at the look of surprise on his lover’s face. “Eat your vegetables, dear,” he mouthed. Nic smiled at that, and they shared a look of amusement before turning their attention to the children across the table.

Already on his second glass of wine, Dario shoveled enough food for three men onto his plate. Khalila appeared to have no more appetite than Wolfe did. She’d put a few mushrooms, some of the peppers, and an assortment of olives on her plate, and she was eyeing a cheese-stuffed olive with suspicion as she poked it with her fork.

“You must eat more than that, my sweet flower,” Dario said. “You’ll need your strength.”

“You appear to be eating enough for both of us,” she replied, pushing the olive aside and spearing a mushroom with her fork.

“Yes, well, we don’t know when we’ll eat again, do we? Fugitives as we’ve become. At least take something more filling. Some meat…” His jaw dropped, his face going pale. “ _Joder…”_ Anger flashing in his eyes, he whirled to face Nic, rising from his seat. “ _Que te folle un pez! Todo esto es cerdo! Me cago en tu puta madre!_ ”

A quick look over the assembly of dishes confirmed the validity of the complaint, intolerably rude though it was. Soppressata, prosciutto, capocollo… all pork, and thus forbidden to Khalila.

But that hardly justified such behavior. Wolfe slammed his hands down on the table and stood. “ _Callate,_ ” he snapped, watching with gratification as first panic, then mortification flashed across Dario’s face. “ _Sientate,_ ” he growled, and glared at the idiot boy until he shrank down into his seat.

“I don’t suppose you’d care to repeat your concerns in a language I speak?” Nic asked in Greek. His tone was mild, but Wolfe could hear the anger lurking beneath. While Nic didn’t speak many languages, like any good soldier, he had a truly global vocabulary of profanity.

Dario stared down at his hands. “It’s all pork,” he muttered, glancing over at Khalila, who looked like she wanted to be anywhere but the seat beside him. “And Khalila-”

Khalila’s eyes were wet, but her voice was rage and steel as she said, “I can speak for myself, you insufferable fool. And if I felt the least bit like eating after seeing torture devices stained with Thomas’s blood, I would have.” She stood and turned in a swirl of robes and skirts. “Pardon me, Scholar Wolfe, Captain Santi. I need air.” Without so much as looking at Dario, she stalked out the side door into the narrow alley outside, letting the door slam shut behind her.

His arms shaking, Wolfe sank back down onto the bench. He could see the blood, too. The spikes, the chains. He remembered being strapped to…

Nic’s hand came to rest on his lower back, grounding him in reality again. The memories receded, but only just beneath the surface, where they lurked, waiting for him to let down his guard.

Drawing in a ragged breath, Wolfe looked up to reassure his partner, and found him staring their former student down. Nic looked entirely calm and eerily still. Dario looked as if he’d just been slapped and was bracing for the next blow. He deserved it, as far as Wolfe was concerned.

Dario opened his mouth, and Wolfe found that he had no patience for whatever stupidity was about to spill out of it. Turning a contemptuous look on Dario, he said, “Do you intend to leave her out there alone? Even if she does not desire your company, for which I could hardly blame her, you might consider keeping watch at a distance. We are, after all, fugitives.”

The fear on Dario’s face turned to terror, and he all but fell over himself to get out the door.

“You don’t think they’ll make a scene out there?” Nic asked after the door had closed. More curisority than accusation, Wolfe thought.

“By the time he works up the nerve to go grovel at her feet, she’ll be ready enough to hear it.” Wolfe reached for his teacup. He needed his nausea well and truly gone so he could move on to wine. The cup shook in his hand until Nic reached out to steady it.

“The memories are bad, aren’t they?” Nic said, helping Wolfe lift the teacup to drink. Not really a question. His other hand rubbed firm circles on Wolfe’s lower back.

Wolfe gulped down the rest of the tea and leaned his head against his lover’s shoulder while Nic put the cup down. He waved off a refill; the nausea wasn’t so bad, not anymore. He was just cold, and tired, and aching with memory.

Nic put the teapot down and reached over to take Wolfe’s hand, bringing it to his lips to kiss. “I’m sorry I had to bring you back there,” he said, hardly above a whisper, his lips trailing along fingers sore from remembered pain. He kissed each fingernail, the way he’d done while the nails were regrowing.

He’d seen the tools they used to cause all the injuries he’d so lovingly tended.

Irrationally but unshakably, Wolfe was ashamed of that, as if Nic and the children had not only seen that room and its contents, but him, helpless and broken and screaming there. He had to remind himself that all they’d seen were the devices, though that alone was disturbing enough.

Wolfe closed his fingers around his partner’s hand and tugged it down to his own lips. “It wasn’t any easier for you to see,” he said. With a glance toward the door, he added, “For any of us, I think.”

“I’m fine,” Nic said, a reflexive and unconvincing response. He followed Wolfe’s gaze. “Hmm. Yes, I’ll have to round them up for debriefing when this is over.”

The laugh that rose from his chest was a dark and vicious thing that made Nic flinch. Wolfe tried to soften his voice when he spoke, but it came out cold and bitter. “You think this is ever going to be over?”

Without a word, Nic folded Wolfe into his arms and held him there, silent. Fighting the urge to argue. It was too intimate an embrace for a public place, and Wolfe put his hands against his partner’s chest to push him away. “Nic…”

Nic’s arms tightened. “Shh. We’re as good as alone here. You need this.”

He pushed back again, holding his lover at an arm’s length. The way his arms shook, he knew he was only succeeding because Nic was letting himself be held back. “I am fine,” he snarled, “I do not need your coddling.”

“And if I do?” Nic’s voice was soft, thick with emotion he’d been reining in. “If I need the comfort of your arms?”

There was calculation in that release of emotion, to be sure, but the pain was real. Nic always put his own needs aside to tend to Wolfe’s, but he’d lost everything in these past hours. His career, his reputation, his home. He’d just fought his own soldiers. He might have sworn he’d give it all up if it came to it, but that didn’t make the loss any easier.

Wolfe let his arms drop, wrapping them around Nic’s waist as his lover pulled him close again. “You need only ask,” he said. He would never be entirely comfortable with such blatant displays of affection in public, but he could tolerate it. For Nic, he could tolerate a great many things.

It wasn’t all bad. Nic was warm, and Wolfe was so very cold. The chill was entirely in his own mind, the last aftershock of the panic that had hounded him all morning, but that didn’t make the heat of his lover’s body any less welcome.

With his head against Nic’s chest, he could hear the change in his partner’s heartbeat and feel the tension leave his muscles as he relaxed, just a little. He was still wary, still on guard, but no longer more than was reasonable under the circumstances. Knowing he could still give Nic such comfort, even as he was struggling to hold himself together, soothed Wolfe’s bruised pride in a way he hadn’t even realized he’d needed.

He had to concede Nic’s point. He had needed this closeness. They both had.

“It will be over, someday,” Nic said after a while. “We may never go home again, we may always be fugitives from Library, but they won’t always be right on our heels. We’ll find a quiet place somewhere away from it all. Make ourselves a new home.”

Wolfe suspected that the place they were most likely to find quiet was the grave, but in the warmth of Nic’s embrace, he didn’t feel like arguing. “Hmm. Anywhere with you is home,” he said instead, because that was true too. Nic had made the house in Alexandria their home, and without him it had lost all its warmth and safety.

Nic kissed his forehead. “Yes. As long as we’re together, we’ll be alright.”

Wolfe leaned into him, and for a short while, it was enough just to be close.

It was Nic who pulled back first at the click of the turning doorknob. He smoothed his jacket and poured Wolfe a glass of wine while the door swung open and Khalila, red-eyed but composed, stepped through. Wolfe sat upright and took the glass with a hand that, for the first time since he’d woken that morning, didn’t so much as quiver. At the sight of Dario, trailing slouched and shamefaced behind Khalila, Wolfe took a deep drink. Nic’s hand found Wolfe’s knee under the table, and Wolfe laid his own hand over it in quiet support.

Khalila sat and nodded to them both. Dario remained standing behind the bench, as if waiting for some cue. Wolfe kept his face carefully blank, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Nic was doing the same. Content to let the boy squirm a bit, Wolfe took another drink of his wine.

Abruptly, Dario dropped into a formal bow. “I am sincerely sorry for my behavior,” he said. “I was worried about Khalila, and-”

Khalila cleared her throat.

“A-and that is no excuse,” Dario stammered, the color rising in his cheeks. “Scholar Wolfe, I apologize for the disruption to our meal. Captain Santi, I assure you that I meant none of what I said, and I am deeply sorry for having said any of it.”

Nic raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? You really don’t hope I get fucked by a fish?” He kept his voice entirely even and calm, as if he were discussing the weather, a talent Wolfe greatly admired in him.

The look on Dario’s face was a true delight to see. Wolfe found the sudden need to drink more wine; it wouldn’t do to let Dario see him grinning.

“Of-Of course not, sir. As I said, I’m very sorry. Very, very sorry.”

Somehow keeping a straight face, Nic continued, “And you don’t think my mother is-”

Dario had gone bright red, and there was real fear in his voice as he said, “No! No! Not at all! And I would never… never do... the thing I said! Please forgive me, sir, I meant no offense.”

“Oh, you meant every word, _stronzino_ ,” Nic said, his calm taking on a dangerous edge. “What you didn’t mean was for me to understand any of it.”

“I-” A flash of annoyance crossed Dario’s face, quickly replaced by remorse. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Nor any of us, I suspect,” Wolfe added, watching Dario sweat over the rim of his glass. He turned to Khalila, “ _Scholar_ Seif, I presume you caught much of the meaning there as well?”

“Well enough,” she said, “To know that the man who said it ought to be deeply ashamed of his behavior.”

Dario seemed to shrivel under her criticism. “Yes, my lady. I apologize to you, once again. And to you, Scholar Wolfe. Neither of you deserved to hear such obscenities.” He kept his eyes downcast, and his hands shook as he clasped them together in front of himself.

“Enough of that. Sit down, will you? You talk as though you personally invented swearing,” Wolfe said. The point was made, no need to drag it out any longer. “Do consider your choice of language next time you feel the need to have such an outburst. Spanish is entirely too common and shares origins with too many languages. I would suggest Finnish for that purpose, personally.”

Nic chuckled. “You just like to show off.” He turned to Khalila. “I owe you an apology as well. I should have known better than to order without specifying the need for something halal. I didn’t think-”

“Nor did you need to,” Khalila interrupted, firm enough in tone that Nic went still. “The requirements of my faith are no more yours to manage than they are Dario’s. They are my own.” Such pride in those dark eyes. He’d trained his students well.

She’d made an impression on Nic, too, judging by the respectful tone he took to say, “That was presumptuous. I apologize. But given that I ordered at your request, I hope you will forgive my offering to order something more.”

“That is kind of you, but unnecessary,” Khalila said. “As little appetite as I have, what is already here will be more than sufficient.” She took a few more of the vegetables from the tray and another chunk of bread, pointedly looking down at her plate as she bit into a mushroom.

Nic looked ready to protest, but Wolfe warned him off with a look. There were better ways to get something more substantial into her. “Does that offer extend to the rest of us?” he asked, nudging Nic’s foot with his own. “I, for one, would like something a little easier on the stomach. There is enough salt and vinegar on this table to pickle a horse. Think they have _fave e cicoria_?”

While Nic went over to the bar to place the order, Dario fidgeted, glanced nervously at Khalila, then looked up and said, “We still need a way out of this city. We should consider that.”

“Weren’t you paying attention?” Khalila asked. “We do.”

Dario shook his head. “The Translation Chamber in the Basilica Julia? That’s a dangerous gamble at best. Are we even certain it will work after what Morgan did?”

The Translation Chamber. The Basilica Julia. Wolfe suppressed a shudder. More places tainted by memory. He bit off a chunk of bread and chewed, more for something to do than hunger.

“Not a bad question,” Nic said, settling back on the bench beside Wolfe. He rested a hand on Wolfe’s thigh. “We can ask Morgan when we meet up with the others. No use planning before that.”

Dario wasn’t so easily dissuaded, and they debated it more, Nic and the children, not reaching any satisfactory conclusion.  The topic brushed too close for comfort to thoughts of what lay beneath the basilica and the consequences of capture, so Wolfe kept out of it, observing and cataloguing useful points without comment.

He ate, or at least nibbled. He finished a glass of wine. He focused on the feel of Nic’s hand, firm and supportive on his leg. The arrival of the food with another bottle of wine was a welcome disruption.

“What on Earth is that?” Dario said, eyeing the large bowl of pureed beans and sauteed greens with suspicion.

“Fava beans with chicory,” Wolfe said, spooning some onto his plate. He tore off a piece of bread and dipped it into the beans. “It isn’t quite hummus, but it’s the closest this barbarian country can manage.”

“It isn’t anything at all like hummus, and you aren’t supposed to eat it like that,” Nic said. An argument they’d had before. “You twirl the greens around your fork and…”

Wolfe waved a dismissive hand. “It isn’t like hummus only because you Italians can’t figure out tahini. A serious failing of your entire cuisine, if you ask me.”

Nic gave an exaggerated sigh. “It’s peasant food. It’s supposed to be simple. Just the beans, chicory, olive oil, and a pinch of salt. The flavor comes from the quality of the ingredients.”

Khalila looked at Wolfe through narrowed eyes, but her lips turned slightly upward as she served herself a generous spoonful. He shouldn’t have expected to get anything past her. “Would you explain the proper way to eat this, Captain Santi?” she asked. “I would like to try it the traditional way.”

“I will pass,” Dario said, waving the spoon away when she offered it to him. “My interest in exploring the local culture does not extend to eating like a _peasant_.”

Glaring at all of them, Wolfe dunked his bread into the beans again. He was tolerating the food better than he’d expected to. None of it tasted quite right, but his stomach wasn’t protesting it, at least. The chills had subsided as well, driven back by Nic’s warmth, and the itching in his scars wasn’t so bad as to be unbearable. It was better than he’d felt in more than a day, and he welcomed this respite from the panic and the memories.

The fear hadn’t left him entirely - that would be a sign of utter madness, given their current danger - but it had abated. He watched the doors, but he didn’t flinch at Dario’s exaggerated gestures.

Dario got what appeared to be a genuine smile out of Khalila with an outlandish remark that Wolfe only half heard, and while the children were absorbed in each other, Nic caught Wolfe’s attention, a silent question in his eyes. Wolfe met his gaze and nodded, finding his hand under the table to twine their fingers together. The past two days had been hard on him, but he could hold himself together. The cracks were healing again.


End file.
